As a business consultant, Mike Vichich has spent the past five years traveling the globe and racking up points on his credit cards—enough to earn the 28-year-old Detroit native free trips to Europe, Africa and the South Pacific.

Cashing in those points gave him the idea for Glyph, an iPhone app that tracks and maximizes credit-card rewards. There was only one hitch: Mr. Vichich, who studied finance and marketing at Michigan State University, didn't know the first thing about developing a mobile app.

"My business acumen was an 'A' but my technical acumen was an 'F'," he says.

Related Video

A growing number of developers hopes to land the next big hit by creating an app. But not every app ends up being a success. WSJ's Jessica Lessin discusses dos and don'ts from the pros. (Photo: Getty Images)

Apps have created a range of jobs that don't require a computer science degree and pay employees enough money to make a living. See a day in the life of Gabriel Hill, who works for errand service app Exec.

Plenty of business owners and entrepreneurs, like Mr. Vichich, are comfortable running a company in the fast-growing mobile-apps market, but lack the technical know-how to build mobile apps on their own.

Their options range from using online app-building tools, to taking crash courses in computer programming and coding languages, hiring a costly professional on contract, or recruiting a full-time developer.

A host of online tools, such as Appsme, AppMakr or Flow.net, allow just about any user to build simple apps by adding text, images and other features into a ready-made template—though some are limited in scope or require manual coding for any extra features.

Mobile-developer boot camps, which are popping up around the country, can fill in the knowledge gap with intensive do-it-yourself training. In a matter of weeks, programs like the Pragmatic Studio in Reston, Va., can help turn a novice into a proficient coder, for fees of about $2,695 for four days of training.

Mr. Vichich, who developed his own three-month crash course last summer, says he felt that knowing the basics helped him recruit the right developer.

\With a partner, he launched Glyph at the App Store in November, after attracting $500,000 in seed capital from local investors earlier in the year: "I'm by no means a developer now, but at least I can speak the language," he says.

In September, Michael Perry took 126 hours of training at CodeAcademy, a free online course that teaches a variety of programming languages. His business partner, an app developer who was working part-time on their San Francisco startup, had to devote more time to his other, full-time job.

Mr. Perry, who had been in charge of business operations, realized he needed to learn code himself in order to launch the business, an app called GVING that sought to help merchants better track and reward their customers.

Favorite Apps

Business leaders, athletes and entertainers share their smartphone and tablet apps for work and play. Tell us your favorites at #favoriteapp

The app is available at the App Store, and Mr. Perry now has a team of three developers to take over the engineering side of the business. He likes the "freedom and flexibility" of being able to code when he wants to, he says.

Keith Brown, an arborist and owner of Austin Tree Experts from Austin, Texas, combined an online app builder with training to make an app that employees and customers use to identify and record details of trees.

Codiqa, the app builder, helped with the basic HTML5 code for the app's layout and general function, he says.

Because Codiqa couldn't add a customized GPS feature to pin the location of the trees, or a photo uploading capability to capture images of the trees, Mr. Brown turned to W3Schools.org and HTML5rocks.com for online tutorials. He also asked questions on StackOverflow.com, a developer forum, when he ran into problems.

All told, it took him roughly 30 hours of work to build the app, he says.

Rather than go it alone, other entrepreneurs are tapping professional developers, who charge upwards of $15,000 to produce sophisticated, polished apps. For multiple rounds of revisions, and complex problems, the costs can run as high as $50,000.

"Say it's $100 an hour, and it's four to six weeks of work, that's already $26,000," says Don Bora, co-founder of Eight Bit Studios, a mobile app development studio in Chicago.

He warns it could take two to three months from idea to product, since much of the work is in brainstorming, not development.

The costs can continue to rise after the app is developed. Each time an operating system updates, or a new device comes out, for instance, there can be changes that impact how an app works. Developers have to constantly issue updates to apps in order to fix bugs and add features based on the phone or tablet's new capabilities.

One common way to find developers is to attend networking and recruiting events, such as Hackathons, Startup Weekends, Tech MeetUps, or by checking out up-and-coming talent at local colleges and universities.

According to Peter Bell, who has been a chief technology officer and a senior technologist at a number of startups including Skinnio and General Assembly, not all app developers are created equal.

Just like doctors, accountants and football players, some software developers are substantially better than others, he says. And because it can take a long time to develop an app, and there are often many revisions and brainstorming sessions, it's important that business owners and developers understand each other, he adds.

Developers should also have a good track record, says Dan Pickett, founder of LaunchWare Inc., a mobile and software development and consulting firm in Bridgewater, Mass. "Stick to someone who has at least put a few apps on the App Store and has demonstrated success," he says.

Location is also important. Overseas developers can be less costly, but may lack a clear understanding of what an app is meant to do."Let's say you are making a health-care app," says Mr. Bora. "Problems can arise if you don't know how the health care system works in the U.S."

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com.